Electricity for Texas RV Parks, Campgrounds and Cabin Parks

Running an RV park, campground or cabin park in Texas means buying electricity at one scale and using it at another. You hold the accounts, receive the bills and carry the risk, while dozens of guests plug in and run air conditioners, space heaters, microwaves and hair dryers. Whether you pass that cost through, build it into the nightly rate, or absorb it, the way your electricity is metered and contracted decides how much control you have over it.

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This guide looks at electricity for Texas RV parks, campgrounds and cabin parks from the owner's side: how master meters and submeters differ, what Texas law says about charging RV occupants for power, why seasonal swings matter in a contract, what to check when you buy a park and take over existing meters, and how to approach the sales tax question. Some of this is statute and some is judgment, and we'll label which is which. Where a point is a legal question, we say so rather than guess.

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One note up front: this is general information, not legal or tax advice. The rules for reselling electricity to occupants are specific, and the penalties for getting them wrong can be real. Have a Texas attorney review your billing practices before you rely on any of this.

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The short version

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How electricity actually flows through a park

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Every electric account in Texas is tied to a meter with a unique identifier called an ESI ID. Your local delivery utility (Oncor, CenterPoint, AEP Texas, TNMP or another) owns and reads the meter, while a retail electric provider (REP) sells you the electricity under a contract. Parks come in a few common arrangements.

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Master-metered parks

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In a master-metered park, the utility delivers power through one meter, or a small number of them, and the park owner distributes it to the sites through the park's own wiring. Everything on that meter comes back to you on one bill: the pedestals, the restrooms and showers, the laundry, the office, the pool, the lighting, any water wells or pumps, and the cabins. If you bill guests for electricity separately, you do it with your own submeters at the sites.

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Individually metered sites or buildings

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In other parks, particularly larger or older ones that were built in phases, some sites or buildings have their own utility meters with their own ESI IDs. Those accounts can be in the park's name or in an occupant's name. It's common for a park to have a mix: individual utility meters on some buildings or cabins and a master meter feeding the RV sites.

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Multiple accounts under one owner

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A park with several meters has several accounts, and those accounts may be on different rate classes, different contract end dates and different providers. That fragmentation is a familiar problem, and we describe it from the multi-location angle in our guide to electricity procurement for franchise and multi-location businesses. The same principle applies when your locations are the meters in a single park. If your accounts are spread over different expiration dates, you can bring them together at renewal and bid them as a single portfolio. We cover how the bidding works in our reverse auction explainer.

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What drives an RV park's electric load

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The loads in an RV park have a different character from those in a typical commercial building, and it helps to understand them before you look at contracts.

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The mix of these loads determines whether you have a low, flat bill or a high, spiky one. If peaks are sharp and short, your delivery charges, and any demand charges on your rate class, matter more. Our guide to demand charges in Texas explains how those work, and our post on TDSP delivery charges on a commercial bill shows how the delivery side is structured.

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What Texas law says about charging RV occupants for electricity

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This is the point where RV parks differ most from other commercial customers, and it's the one most owners get wrong or never look into.

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Why RVs have their own rules

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Texas regulates submetering in apartments, condominiums and mobile home parks under Subchapter B of Utilities Code Chapter 184, along with a Public Utility Commission rule (16 Texas Administrative Code §25.142). That subchapter defines a "dwelling unit" and states that the term does not include a recreational vehicle. RV parks are instead addressed in Subchapter C, which you can read on the Texas Legislature's site as Utilities Code Chapter 184. If you also own apartments or a mobile home park, our post on CSA rates for Texas apartments covers the multifamily side, and the two should not be confused with each other.

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The conditions for charging occupants

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Under Subchapter C, the metered sale of electricity by an RV park owner doesn't count as providing "electric service for compensation" if the owner meets certain conditions. Paraphrasing the statute, those conditions are:

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The statute also says how the rate is calculated: the amount the supplying utility charged the owner in the preceding fiscal year, divided by the total kilowatt-hours consumed by occupants visiting the park in that year, rounded to the nearest cent. As a purely hypothetical illustration, if a park paid $48,000 for electricity that was submetered to RV occupants and those occupants used 400,000 kWh, the calculation gives 12 cents per kWh. Your numbers will be different.

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Two further provisions matter in practice. First, the owner can't include charges for electricity used in a common area or the park office in that calculation, and can't recover those costs through metered charges to occupants. Second, if the owner collects more than the supplying utility charged at the end of a fiscal year, the excess has to be refunded to occupants visiting the park in the following fiscal year.

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The statute also addresses nonpayment. It allows an RV park operator to withhold electric, water or wastewater service from a person occupying a recreational vehicle at the park if the occupant is delinquent in paying for utility services provided by the operator, until the occupant pays the delinquent amount.

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The open questions to take to an attorney

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We're a broker, not a law firm, and there are a few places where we'd want a Texas attorney's opinion before relying on the statute as written:

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The practical takeaway: if you bill RV guests for metered electricity, document your cost base, your rate calculation, your records and your refunds. If you instead include electricity in the nightly rate, you avoid these particular billing mechanics, though you take on the usage risk yourself.

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Seasonal load and what it means for your contract

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Many parks have a busy season and a quiet one. A lake park may fill up in summer and on holiday weekends. A park in a warm part of the state may fill up in winter. A hunting or event-oriented park may spike around particular weekends. Whatever your pattern, it affects how you should approach a contract.

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Because the statute's rate is set once a year and based on the previous year's costs, a contract that holds your price steady through the year can also make the arithmetic easier to administer and defend. That is a judgment, not a legal requirement, but it's worth discussing with your accountant.

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Buying a park and taking over the meters

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Acquiring an RV park or campground means inheriting an electrical system, and often a tangle of accounts. Before closing, we'd ask for the following:

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You'll also need to arrange service in your own name. The transfer process runs through the delivery utility and your chosen REP, and timing matters, because you don't want a gap in service or a default arrangement that isn't competitively priced. Our page on adding or transferring electricity meters in Texas and our post on adding an electricity meter for a Texas business walk through how new and transferred service works.

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If you're expanding, for example adding a new loop of sites, a bathhouse or a block of cabins, you may need new meters or a larger service. That's a request to the delivery utility, and it can take time, so start early. For the permanent side, the pages above are the right starting point.

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Sales tax on park electricity: a question to check with the Comptroller

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Texas presumes that electricity is taxable, with exemptions for specific uses. One of those is residential use, and the Comptroller's rule on natural gas and electricity (34 Texas Administrative Code §3.295) defines it in a way that specifically names campgrounds and recreational vehicle parks. According to the rule, residential use includes:

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The implication is that electricity attributable to nightly and weekly guests is generally in a different category from electricity attributable to guests staying 30 days or longer, and that common-area electricity in a park may be treated as residential use. A park that serves both kinds of guests, on a single master meter, raises a harder question about how the meter is treated. That question turns on facts we can't see, and we'd send you to the Comptroller's office or a tax advisor before you file anything. If you've already been paying tax on all of it, ask whether a review makes sense. For how a related exemption works on the paperwork side, see our post on the Texas church electricity sales tax exemption.

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How a broker helps an RV park

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A broker can't change your park's physical metering or settle a legal question, but a competitive process can address the commercial side of the equation: what you pay per kWh, how long you commit, and what the contract says about seasonality. In practice, that means we collect your bills, bundle your accounts so the providers see the whole load, and bring back competing offers in a comparable format. If you're thinking of this as another form of hospitality, our post on hotel electricity costs and our hospitality industry page cover related ground, and the economics of our service are explained in how a commercial energy broker gets paid: the winning provider pays us, not you.

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A checklist for RV park, campground and cabin park owners

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Frequently asked questions

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Can an RV park owner charge guests for electricity in Texas?

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Yes, under conditions. Subchapter C of Utilities Code Chapter 184 describes when a metered sale by an RV park owner does not count as providing electric service for compensation. The conditions include charging a fixed per-kWh rate computed for the fiscal year, not recovering more than the supplying utility charges you, keeping records for three years and refunding any excess. Have an attorney review your specific method.

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Can an RV park make a profit on electricity?

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The statute is built around cost recovery: the owner must be able to show that it does not annually recover through metered charges more than the supplying utility charges for the submetered electricity. It does not set up a profit center. Keep in mind that this applies to metered electricity sold to RV occupants, and how your overall rates are structured is a separate matter for your counsel.

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Do the apartment submetering rules apply to RV sites?

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Not directly. The apartment and mobile home park provisions define a dwelling unit in a way that excludes recreational vehicles, and RV parks have their own subchapter.

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Can I include the park office and common areas in the rate I charge guests?

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No. The statute says an owner may not include charges for electricity used in a common area or office in the computation, and may not recover them through a metered charge to RV occupants.

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What happens to electric service when I buy an existing RV park?

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You'll need service set up in your name for each meter you take over. Get the list of meters and ESI IDs, confirm who holds each account, and don't assume the seller's contract transfers. Arrange the start date with your chosen provider so there's no gap or default placement.

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Can an RV park shop for a better electricity rate?

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If your meters are in a competitive area of Texas, yes. Parks in areas served by municipal utilities or electric cooperatives that don't offer retail choice may not be able to. Send us a recent bill and we'll tell you.

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Is electricity at an RV park subject to sales tax?

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Electricity is presumed taxable, but the Comptroller's rule treats certain campground and RV park uses as residential use, including stays longer than 29 consecutive days and common areas. How that applies to your park depends on your guest mix and metering, so ask the Comptroller or a tax advisor.

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Get a second look at your park's electricity contracts

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If you own or are buying an RV park, campground or cabin park, we'll review your bills and collect competing offers from our network of Texas suppliers at no cost to you. Send a recent bill through our contact page or call (737) 295-9735. EnergyBrokerTX is a PUC-licensed broker, License #BR260054. We're not a law firm, so for any question about billing guests, we'll point you to a Texas attorney.